Celebrating its 100th birthday this year, The Haunted Bookshop—a fun little novella by prolific bibliophile Christopher Morley—remains in print to this day, and continues to make its welcome presence felt in the world of literature. Although the title implies ghosts, there are no supernatural elements to be found, though it does contain crime novel tropes…
“Grief can be dangerous.” Sid Halley, one of author Dick Francis’ few recurring investigators and the protagonist of the 1996 novel, Come to Grief, says this just after having his arm broken by a vengeful widower armed with a length of pipe. It’s something Halley knows all too well. By the events of Come to…
I’ve always loved thrillers and science fiction stories, especially those that occur in the near-future rather than hundreds or thousands of years from now. As I worked on my latest novel Synapse, I ended up thinking a lot about my favorite near-future films, especially thrillers. Here is a list of my top eighteen (with a…
When you tell people you are writing (or aspire to write) crime fiction, many of them will tell you, “Don’t quit your day job.” Don’t listen to them. You should totally quit your day job. And then get a much better one—one that’s ideally suited to you becoming a successful crime novelist. You see, most…
What’s the worst thing that could possibly happen to a reporter? Professionally at least, that’s easy to answer. The worst thing is to make a mistake. And that is what Mary Willis Walker has captured so beautifully in The Red Scream: the anguish of a reporter—possibly—having made a devastating and career-ending error. At first, this…
I don’t read crime fiction just for the crimes. Well, sometimes I do. When I pick up an Agatha Christie novel, I’m usually in it solely for the intricacy of the plot—to see how the whodunit was done. But there are other instances when the murder(s), adventures, thrills and suspense of each book—usually in a…
The Sculptress is the first book I’ve read by Minette Walters, but it certainly won’t be the last. I was surprised to learn that it’s only the second book she’d written, quickly following on the tail of her 1992 debut novel, The Ice House. Walters’ writing draws you in at once. It’s clear when you…
I’m constantly on the hunt for interesting baking trends to work into my mystery series. I want readers to feel fully immersed in the sensory world of an artisan kitchen when they step into the pages of my books. I want you to be able to smell herbaceous rosemary flatbread charring in a wood-fired oven,…
At the 1993 Edgar Awards banquet, the best first novel award went to a new author named Michael Connelly, whose debut Harry Bosch novel The Black Echo had been published the previous year. The promise of that first book has clearly been fulfilled, with Connelly going on to become one of the most prolific and…
Over nearly a decade as a bookseller at Barnes & Noble, I came to know the big names in every genre. Even if I’d never read one of their books myself, I could recommend them to customers based on the author’s reputation and the reader’s interests. Margaret Maron was one of those big names. I…
